The Country of Sir Walter Scott

by Charles S. Olcott

On the day of our visit the ruin made a charming picture. The sky was partly filled with cumulus clouds of a foamy, filmy whiteness through the open spaces of which the sun was shining brightly. The clear water of the moat reflected the azure tint of the heavens, so that the old ruin, its turrets and walls thickly covered with the deep green of the ivy, was clearly defined against a background of white, bordered above and below with shades of the loveliest blue. The dry, yellow grass of the field in the foreground, the green rushes bordering the moat, some purple flowers at the base of the turrets and hundreds of bright golden wallflowers in the broken interstices of the walls completed a brilliancy of colour which I have seldom seen equalled in any landscape.

The surroundings of Caerlaverock do not in any way correspond with the environments of Ellangowan Auld Place. I had already learned, however, not to depend too much upon geographical considerations. It requires only a superficial knowledge of Scott's method of work to understand that while he was a most careful observer of all that interested him and wrote many accurate descriptions of scenery, he did not hesitate to use his material with a free hand. It was perfectly simple for him to transplant an old ruin, which admirably fitted one requirement of the story, to a rocky coast, thirty or forty miles away, where the other necessary features were to be found, or even to combine two different parts of the coast for his purpose.

We found it necessary, therefore, to return to Dumfries, for there is no bridge below the city, and there, crossing the river, travel again to the south, this time on the west shore, to the town of Kirkcudbright, where we stopped long enough to learn to pronounce the name ('Kir-koo'bry') and to have our lunch. Then, continuing southward, we stopped our motor at Balmae, the country-seat of Lady Selkirk, and walked about a mile to the rocky coast of the Solway at Torr's Point, where we could enjoy a superb view of the Irish Sea, the English coast far away on the left, and the Isle of Man, faintly visible in the distance. The coast is high and rocky. It is broken into many coves or bays, which were a convenient resort for pirates and smugglers. It would be easy to imagine Ellangowan Auld Place situated on one of these cliffs, except that some other features have to be taken from another part of the coast. Scott's description of the smuggling trade carried on by Dirk Hatteraick and others of his kind was taken from the local traditions. The coast, to sailors who knew it well, offered many a haven of refuge, but was an extremely dangerous place for a stranger ship. There are many stories current regarding the exploits of Paul Jones, who was a native of Kirkcudbright. After embracing the American cause in the War of the Revolution, he cruised in his little ship, the Ranger, along the coasts of England and Scotland, his familiarity with the Solway enabling him to make use of its numerous coves to excellent advantage.

To complete the investigation of the scenery which Scott supposed to be within a mile of Ellangowan, I made another long journey the next day, taking the train from Dumfries to Kirkcudbright and thence driving westward by pony-cart, through Gatehouse-of-Fleet to Ravenshall Point on the coast of Wigtown Bay. Here we put up the horse at a farm and walked westward along the shore, my driver acting as guide. Chancing to meet a gentleman whose family are large land-holders in the neighbourhood, I was conducted to the Gauger's Loup,[[1]] a cliff on the rocky coast, beneath which were some huge rocks that had dislodged and fallen to the shore. At this point a revenue officer was once attacked by smugglers and thrown over the cliffs, dashing out his brains on the ragged rocks below. This well-known incident gave Scott the basis for his account of the death of Kennedy. Standing on this cliff, my new-found friend pointed out a notch in a distant hill, called the 'Nick of the Doon,' which he said local tradition assigned as the place where Meg Merrilies pronounced her malediction upon the Laird of Ellangowan. Not many hundred yards away is the original of Dirk Hatteraick's Cave, so called because it was once used by smugglers and particularly by a Dutch skipper named Yawkins, who was the prototype of Scott's famous character. To reach it by direct line was impossible, so we walked down the road a quarter of a mile, crossed a field, climbed a stone wall, and dropped into a thick wood. Here the land sloped at an angle of forty-five degrees. The ground was thickly covered with garlic, emitting a strong odour. We finally reached the rocks and began a scramble worthy of a mountain goat, until at last we discovered the cave. The entrance is a narrow opening between two great rocks, barely large enough to admit a man of moderate size. We could look down a steep incline of about thirty feet, full of dirt and slime. It would be very easy to enter, for it would be like pushing a cork into an empty bottle. The difficulty would be to get the cork out. Having no desire to experiment, I took the guide's word for it, that the cave is about sixty feet long, from six to twelve feet wide, and high enough for a man to stand erect. It would, therefore, afford plenty of room for the crew of a smuggler's boat and a large cargo of whiskey and other contraband stores.

I asked the driver to impersonate Dirk Hatteraick for a few minutes, and he, good-naturedly, complied, crawling into the opening, which he completely filled, and looking out at me with a pipe in his mouth and a broad grin. I took his picture, but his honest young face and amiable smile made a very poor pose for the desperate old smuggler. It served, however, to show the small size of the opening, which might easily have been concealed by shrubbery or brushwood.

Scott's information regarding this coast came from Joseph Train, a resident of Newton-Stewart, a town in Galloway on the river Cree, just above its outlet into Wigtown Bay. He was an excise officer who performed his duties faithfully. He had early in life developed a passion for antiquarian research as well as a taste for poetry. With a friend he had begun the collection of material for a History of Galloway, when he was surprised and delighted to receive a letter from Walter Scott, asking for some copies of a poem which he had written. In a subsequent letter Scott asked for any local traditions or legends which he did not wish to turn to his own account, adding, 'Nothing interests me so much as local anecdotes; and, as the applications for charity usually conclude, the smallest donation will be thankfully received.'

Train immediately abandoned the idea of attempting any work of original authorship and determined to devote himself to collecting material for the benefit of one who could make far better use of it,—a decision in which his friend acquiesced. 'Upon receiving Mr. Scott's letter,' he said, 'I became still more zealous in the pursuit of ancient lore, and being the first person who had attempted to collect old stories in that quarter with any view to publication, I became so noted, that even beggars, in the hope of reward, came frequently from afar to Newton-Stewart, to recite old ballads and relate old stories to me.'

In later years Train often visited Abbotsford; a genuine affection sprang up between him and the novelist; he became one of the few who knew the secret of the authorship of 'Waverley'; and no other of the author's many friends ever did so much in furnishing him material of the kind he wanted. Not only stories and ballads, but more tangible objects of antiquarian interest were picked up by him and forwarded to his patron. One of the most interesting possessions now in the study at Abbotsford is the Wallace Chair, made from the wood of the house in which Sir William Wallace

Was done to death by felon hand
For guarding well his fathers' land.